[Buddha-l] Wealth and excess

[jkirk]

Hi Katherine,

Yes, that was probably a large part of it. 
Also, don't "spiritual" teachers (or whatever one should call
them) usually tend to address the individual as THE moral
subject, to be liberated or reformed, with the goal in view being
that reformation of a population will end up being a reformation
of society. 

So there's no concept of "culture" here, of the power of shared
values influencing behavior. 
Maybe that's the illusion I was getting at, but if so it's a
powerful illusion that runs huge social aggregations that share a
culture.

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Joanna, could it be that the Buddha didn't "do sociology" and
emphasized the individual precisely because he took his own
context for granted, i.e., a context in which a family or clan
"wego" prevailed over an individual ego?
 
Katherine